


Aftermath

by alee7



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Recovery, if they aren't confirmed alive at the end of IW then they're dead here, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 11:18:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17744942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alee7/pseuds/alee7
Summary: In the wake of Infinity War, Tony and Steve try to cope with their heavy loss and find some hope for recovery along the way.





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> I found this little one-shot deep in my computer's files. I must have written it right after IW in a grief-ridden rage lol. I thought it was pretty decent, and I figured I should post it for the public before End Game comes out and crushes all of our dreams. This is probably going to stay a one-shot, but I might continue it later if I complete my other WIPs.
> 
> Please let me know if you'd be interested in reading more of this! If it were to continue, it would probably be a big polyamorous fest not even gonna lie.
> 
> Thank you in advance to all of my wonderful readers, commenters, and kudo-givers! You keep my inspiration to write alive!! <3

The world is in chaos after it happens. It takes Tony a while to realize the true ramifications of life on Earth, after half of the population is destroyed. Thanos thinks he’s done them a favor. He thinks he’s made life better for humanity, in his twisted mind.

In reality, Earth shatters. Economies tank. People grieve in the streets and crime is at an all-time high.

Tony isn’t exactly sure how long he mourns on a foreign planet. The only person that lives along with him is Nebula. He’s lost everyone else he was up here with. Even Peter. He closes his eyes tightly at the thought of the kid. Sixteen, and much too young to die.

He thinks he’s stranded in space, going to die eventually, until a talking raccoon comes to get him. That snaps him out of his grief for a moment, because what the hell. Rocket says he’s looking for Star-Lord. Drax, Mantis, Gamora. Tony has to tell him that they’re all gone.

The raccoon’s face shuts down into something indiscernible, and Tony thinks he can relate. Nebula is silent, her fury evident. Tony can’t feel anger. He can’t feel anything but grief.

When they finally get back to Earth, landing by the compound, he rushes to find the nearest phone. He asks some stranger to borrow theirs. By some miracle, phone towers are still working. Tony isn’t sure how long that will last, with half the people who ran them being gone.

Pepper. He has to make sure his fiancé is okay. Please, please let her be okay. The phone he borrows from some random stranger rings and rings and rings.

“No, no, no. Please,” Tony begs, though he doesn’t know to whom he’s imploring. He hands the phone back to the stranger and thanks them offhandedly. Rocket and Nebula are giving him looks that portray their pity. They’ve all known too much loss today.

“I have to get into the compound. Maybe she’s just trying to find me.” His voice is hopeful, but even he doesn’t sound convinced. He’s terrified. “Rocket, you said you were in Wakanda?” He asks the raccoon, almost as a temporary distraction for himself. Rocket nods, and stays silent, letting Tony filter through his thoughts.

“Who…who was left?” Tony finally has the balls to ask. He thinks of Rhodey, he thinks of Wanda and Natasha and Thor. Bruce, Vision, Barnes, Sam.

Steve.

He waits with bated breath, though he isn’t sure why it took him the hours of travel back to Earth to ask this. He’d been in shock, he supposes. Rocket shifts, the gun on his back shifting with him.

“I don’t really know any of their names, bud. I can bring them back here?” Rocket offers. Tony sighs and nods. He feels grateful that the creature would be willing to do that, though he is in mourning too.

Nebula looks him over with a sharp gaze. “We will fix this, Man of Iron. We will find the stones and make this right,” she tells him with a quiet, fierce conviction. He gives her an appreciative look. He isn’t sure he has the strength for vengeance right now, though it seemed Nebula never ran out of that particular fire.

“We have no idea where he took them. It’s like a needle in a haystack,” he tells her helplessly. She falters for a moment, dark ink eyes looking lost.

“We have to try. Do not give up, Tony Stark,” she says before turning to go back to the pod. Rocket hesitates a moment, then follows her. He watches them go, the pod shooting into the air with a quickness that nothing of Earth has. There’s a moment of panic from civilians, but it passes when it’s clear the ship is just taking its leave.

Tony snaps himself out of his daze and runs into the compound. He immediately starts his search. “FRIDAY? Give me a location on Pepper. Where is she?!” Tony yells at his AI. There’s a terrible silence from the Irish personality that only settles what he’d feared deep in his gut.

“I’m so sorry, boss,” she finally says. Tony stops his frantic searching and falls to his knees. He screams and cries and curls his hands in his hair, tugging.

He isn’t sure how long he stays there on the floor like that, screaming until his lungs and throat feel like fire. Hours, he would guess. He doesn’t even hear the pod return. He doesn’t hear FRIDAY say that what was left of his disbanded team was here.

He just keeps crying and screaming in his grief.

He doesn’t hear heavy boots behind him, barely feels someone sink to their knees next to him. Large hands are on his shoulders and he turns. He doesn’t need to look. He knows who it is; he’d know the man anywhere.

He gives one cry of relief in the midst of all his cries of grief as he buries his face into Steve’s chest and lets himself wrap his arms around him tightly.

“I’ve got you. I’m so, so sorry, Tony,” Steve soft voice came to him, the first thing that broke through the ringing of his ears since he collapsed here. Tony thinks that maybe the apology is for a lot more than Pepper’s death.

It’s a long while before his screams and sobs fall silent before his tears stop. He pulls away from Steve’s hold shakily and looks up, to see who was left. His eyes scan the crowd and he sees Rhodey. He breathes a sigh of relief and runs to him.

Rhodes is out of his armor before Tony gets there, wrapping him up in a hug so tight, Tony can hardly breathe. He doesn’t care, though. He lets it happen. He’s lost so much today, and at least he didn’t lose his best friend through it all.

He scans again. So many people aren’t here that should be. Vision, Wanda, Sam, T’Challa, Bucky.

He turns to Steve, who’s giving him a pained look. His heart breaks for the other man. It isn’t fair, none of this is right. He steps back over to him, brown eyes still swimming with tears, though he isn’t actively crying anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks, finding his voice somehow. “It isn’t fair, for you to lose him like that.” When he says this, Steve’s face crumples. It’s Tony who’s offering a hug this time.

What’s left of the Avengers team joins them, and they all cling to each other for a little while. They’ve lost big parts of their family. Tony looks them all over, mentally doing another count of which members of his family he has left. Steve, Rhodey, Natasha, Thor, Bruce.

Nebula and Rocket aren’t here. He’d distantly heard the pod leave. He hopes they have some way to get a hold of him in the impending chaos.

Eventually, they all move further into the compound with numb movements. There isn’t even time to talk about the so-called Civil War. They’re all feeling bone-deep grief, and that conflict seems silly to Tony now.

FRIDAY turns on a nearby TV. What’s left of news coverage is showing the bedlam outside. They all watch for a moment, steely silent gazes assessing.

“Avengers,” Tony says quietly. That’s all it takes. They move to get suited up, not wasting another moment. They’d have to pause their anguish. People were in danger.

They toil for hours, the team working like a well-oiled machine despite missing half of their numbers. It’s like time never passed, as they all listen to Cap’s orders in their ears. Night fell, and there is no end to the madness around them as of yet.

They did make a dent in it though, and just their presence is something that people seem to find comfort in. They finally give up for the day and trudge to the compound, dirty and tired and exhausted.

Tony doesn’t want to go to his bedroom. He doesn’t want to sleep in the bed he’d shared with Pepper for all of these years. He stays in his workshop for a long while after making sure what is left of his team find their rooms. 

He’d kept some open for each of them. Hopeful that one day, they’d all return and be reunited. He hadn’t wanted it to be like this, though.

He can’t even focus on his work. He trudges up to the common room, curious to see if anyone else is there. He pauses when he sees Steve, blue eyes red-rimmed as he stares out the pristine glass window.

Tony hesitates only a moment before moving to sit beside him. Steve looks over to him and tries to offer a smile, but it’s watery and broken. Tony can definitely relate. They stare at each other a moment before looking away again.

“After all we’d been through…to lose him again. To see him die in front of me, again…” Steve finally says, his voice wrecked. Tony turns his gaze back to the blond man. He’d been so angry with Steve. He hadn’t even considered pressing that call button until today. All of that seems to dissipate around him, worthless anger.

“I’m sorry. For trying to hurt him. I know you were just trying to protect me. To protect him. I would have done the same for Pepper,” Tony’s voice breaks on her name. He isn’t sure he can talk about her, beyond that. The loss is so new, it almost doesn’t feel real.

He takes a rattling breath and looks at his lap, chickening out as Steve’s gaze turns to him. Steve speaks up, softly. “You had every right to be angry, Tony. It’s me who should be apologizing. I…” There’s a soft sob from Steve that startles Tony. “God. I have a ring, you know? I was going to ask him when he was healed. T’Challa had already agreed to marry us in Wakanda.”

The admission makes Tony feel shocked and newfound misery wells up in his heart for his friend. “Steve…” is all he can manage to say. Steve bends over slightly and put his head in his hands. His shoulders shake with heavy sobs and Tony reaches over, wraps his arms around him.

They stay like that for a while, until Steve finally calms down again. Tony’s been silently crying too, for Pepper, for Steve’s loss. When Steve does look up at him, he searches Tony’s eyes.

“The kid…” Steve says, sudden realization in his eyes. Tony’s heart breaks in his chest and he shakes his head, biting his lip to keep from letting out a pained noise. “Oh, Tony…” Steve said softly, and just that brings on another wave of tears for both of them.

Losing Peter is like a sharp knife to his heart. The boy had become something of a protégé for him, but it had gone deeper than that. The boy had pulled fatherly instincts out of him that had made him realize that he might want to actually be a dad. He’d asked Pepper in so many words, she hadn’t said no. But now that possibility slipped through his fingers, like the ashes Peter had turned into on that alien planet, so far away from home.

Tony and Steve kept each other company for another hour or so, before reluctantly heading to bed. Tony went for one of the empty guest rooms instead of his own room. He cried some more into the pillow, and eventually cried himself to sleep.

Weeks passed. The Avengers reassembled and did their best to reign in a chaotic, destabilized world. It wasn’t easy. Crime was abundant. Companies collapsed, governments were overthrown. The team never had a moment to themselves beside the few hours they would allow for sleep.

Tony had managed to look to see if May had survived because if she had he’d planned on telling her. She deserves to know. He isn’t sure if he feels relief or pain when he finds out she’d been among the dead.

Tony never manages to move back into his room. He has his stuff moved to another one, leaving all of Pepper’s in the other. He doesn’t go in there, he’s sure it’s like a mausoleum, her clothes still in the closet. Her perfume on the bathroom counter. If he closes his eyes, he can still smell her, still feel her strawberry-blonde hair on his shoulder as she slept.

Steve visits him down in the lab, like old times. It’s the one part of all of this hell that makes him feel whole again. It’s the one thing he clings to, the one happiness he has. Steve and Tony gravitate to each other easily, and none of the other teammates mention it. They wouldn’t, they know what everyone is going through.

They get a call from Clint. Laura is gone. Miraculously, his children are all okay. But they’re mourning their mother, who disappeared right in front of their eyes like she was never there. Tony offers him and the kids a place at the compound, and surprisingly he accepts. Tony pays off the mortgage on the Barton farm, so they don’t lose it. 

One day, he’ll find that damn gauntlet. He’ll use the time stone himself to undo all of this.

Clint arrives and they all grieve again together, in the common room, as a family. A family that’s been crippled, but not broken. Steve holds Clint’s newest child. Nathaniel, so tiny, wide eyes oblivious of the pain. Tony wants to ask, but he doesn’t. He’s afraid if he touches the infant, he’ll dissipate, turn to dust like Peter had.

Two more months pass, and things are slowly getting better. The few government officials that are left band together, there are re-elections. Businesses get pardons and the economy slowly goes again. It’s nothing like what the world had been. There are certain products that are in short supply. There are fewer doctors, fewer cops, and fewer firefighters. Fewer of every type of skill set.

It isn’t a utopia like Thanos always thought it would be. It’s a horrible, terrible mess. The whole world is grieving, scraping on for survival while trying to maintain some semblance of society. 

The Avengers never falter, though. They’re out every day doing rounds. Tony makes it a personal goal to fly over Queens most nights.

The crime rate drops some as time goes on, but it’s still higher than it was before Thanos. There are only so many places the authorities and the Avengers can be at one time. Still, they try. They don’t give up. They get some messages from Rocket and Nebula, updates on their search for the stones, but so far there haven’t been any promising leads.

Steve and Tony get even closer. Their growing friendship continues to be Tony’s one bright star in the empty void of his life. They spend almost every moment together when they’re off duty. Steve draws quietly while Tony works on some sort of machinery.

They talk for hours about nothing and everything. Sometimes, it’s about Bucky and Pepper. Sometimes it’s about the weather, the newly rebooted stock market.

They’re healing, Tony realizes, though it doesn’t really help the sharp burning pain he feels in his heart when he thinks about her.

It’s been a little over six months one night when they’re down in the lab. Tony clutches a scotch in his hand, having gone back to the bottle. Steve politely doesn’t mention it as he sits down next to Tony with his sketchbook in hand.

A few times, Tony’s been carried up to his new room after a drunken fit. Glass that he knew had been shattered on the floor the night before was magically cleaned up the next morning. “I would drink the same way if it did anything for me,” Steve had told Tony when the genius had apologized one hung-over morning.

“Can I draw you?” Steve asks, out of the blue, cutting through their companionable silence. Tony looks up with a raised eyebrow, taking a sip of his scotch. That isn’t exactly what Tony had expected to hear.

“Uh, yeah. Of course,” Tony said. Something warm blooms in his chest, something he tries so hard to ignore. He is just lonely, mourning. Steve is too. They need each other in friendship, and Tony absolutely will not let his past infatuation come back with full force.

Steve smiles at him, a soft, grateful thing that makes Tony’s heart pound in his chest. Steve reaches out and traces a large hand over Tony’s new reactor. He doesn’t need it to live anymore, no. But it makes his suit a part of him. He never has to hesitate or wait for suit parts to come flying toward him.

“Your new suit is amazing, you know. You never cease to amaze me with what you can create,” Steve says, his touch turning into a bit of a caress. Tony swallows hard and forces himself to look away. Steve seems to understand what he’s doing and he pulls his hand away. “I…I just want to concentrate on something, someone else. Concentrate on the family that’s living,” Steve admits.

Tony frowns. He had seen parts of Steve’s sketchbooks before, these past months. They were almost all Bucky. Some of Peggy, some of Sam, T’Challa and the Wakandan wilderness. The art is an outlet of mourning for Steve. Tony understands that. And he also understands the need Steve feels to move on, at least a little.

“You can draw me and my amazing tech anytime, Capsicle,” Tony fixes him with a soft smile, trying to ease some of Steve’s emotion. Steve gives him a grateful smile in return and looks Tony over with an artists’ gaze. It makes Tony shiver, though he manages to repress it.

Then, he gets to work, pencil scratching over paper. Blue eyes gain an intensity that Steve usually has for his art. Tony ends up watching the other man just as much as Steve watches him. Their eyes connect now and then, gazes somewhat knowing.

This is dangerous, and Tony should backpedal. They’re mourning. They’re lonely. They miss the touch of their lovers, and this new closeness they’ve managed to find is pushing them into something they might regret. Something that might hurt them in the end.

Tony takes a deep breath and lets Steve keep drawing.

When the one year anniversary comes around, the world seems to fall silent. It’s a day of mourning for everyone. There’s hardly a soul on the Earth who isn’t affected by what Thanos had done.

Crime even took a significant dip for that one day. Flags were all half-mast, and so many shops that had managed to reopen in the aftermath were closed that day. The Avengers even gave themselves the time to remember, to reflect.

That night, Tony finds Steve out on the common room balcony. He’s looking over the city. Only parts of the once brilliant metropolis were gleaming with light. The noise of New York isn’t near what it once was. He turns when he hears Tony join him, fixing him with a tired but fond smile.

“Hey,” Tony rasps quietly, as he joins him at the railing. Steve turns his gaze away from the buildings and turns to face Tony. His quiet greeting, that one little insignificant word, is the only thing they say to each other that day.

There isn’t any need for words when their mouths are pressed softly together, and they can’t seem to part for even a gasp of air. Maybe this is just their grief letting itself be known.

Or maybe this is their way of healing and finding hope again.


End file.
